Sudden Death

No one, of course, paid any attention. At about 9 one morning last week,
an unidentified man simply parked an automobile in a bustling
neighborhood in the southern Lebanese coastal
town of Sidon and walked away. Moments later, an explosion ripped
through the street, virtually destroying the seven-story regional
headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leftist
Lebanese allies, the 13-party National Movement, where a meeting of
officials was due to convene within the hour.

Distraught relatives and rescue workers carried wounded women and
children to safety over...